Daily Archives: March 22, 2010

The year was 2002. The US was on shaky economic footing, still reeling from stock market declines and the as-yet uncertain prospect of a two-pronged conflict in the Middle East. And Alan Greenspan, then Fed chairman, was worried about consumer spending.

He had been digging himself deeper into a hole defending the existing fan charts, but in a lecture to the Royal Society today, he stopped digging. This shows courage and intellectual honesty that is rare among the heads of powerful institutions such as central banks.

As readers of this blog will know, I have been extremely critical of the Bank’s fan charts, particularly the published forecast in February which failed to convey the message the MPC wanted, and critical of the governor for refusing to acknowledge their weaknesses. I suggested alternative presentations, to meet both my needs as someone in the business of wholesale information dissemination and to meet the Bank’s needs of conveying uncertainty in its forecasting. The Bank is thinking along the same lines as I suggested.

One Swiss franc can buy more euros than at any time since the launch of the currency in 1999. At 15.47 today, the currency traded at 1.4309, breaking its previous record of 1.4315 reached in October 2008.

Significant strengthening occurred last week, following comments from central bank board member Jean-Pierre Danthine. Read more

Labour is planning to lose the 2010 election. That is the only sensible interpretation of the mood music two days before the Budget.

What would a government be planning if it were confident of victory or thought it had a fair chance of being in power in six weeks’ time? It would be preparing a Budget that told the British public how it had reasonably successfully weathered the financial and economic storms of the past two years and it would prepare the public for the inevitable pain of fiscal consolidation in the years to come. In short, it would start to clean up its own mess. Read more

It’s safer to borrow from Aa2-rated Warren Buffett than from AAA-rated US government, if bond markets are correct. From Bloomberg:

Two-year notes sold by the billionaire’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. in February yield 3.5 basis points less than Treasuries of similar maturity, according to data compiled by Bloomberg… Berkshire Hathaway’s 1.4 per cent notes due February 2012 yielded 0.89 per cent on March 18, 3.5 basis points, or 0.035 of a percentage point, less than Treasuries, composite prices compiled by Bloomberg show. Read more

Archived - Money Supply

Economics blog

About this blog

Blog guide

Welcome. If you have yet to register on FT.com you will be asked to do so before you begin to read FT blogs. However, our posts remain free.

Opinions on market-moving economics and central banks around the world.

The Money Supply team

Chris Giles has been the economics editor of the Financial Times since 2004. Based in London, he writes about international economic trends and the British economy. Before reporting economics for the Financial Times, he wrote editorials for the paper, reported for the BBC, worked as a regulator of the broadcasting industry and undertook research for the Institute for Fiscal Studies. RSS

Claire Jones is the FT's Eurozone economy correspondent, based in Frankfurt. Prior to this, she was an economics reporter in London. Before joining the Financial Times, she was the editor of the Central Banking journal. Claire studied philosophy and economics at the London School of Economics. RSS

Robin Harding is the FT's US economics editor, based in Washington. Prior to this, he was based in Tokyo, covering the Bank of Japan and Japan's technology sector, and in London as an economics leader writer. Robin studied economics at Cambridge and has a masters in economics from Hitotsubashi University, where he was a Monbusho scholar. Before joining the FT, Robin worked in asset management and banking. RSS

Sarah O’Connor is the FT’s economics correspondent in London. Before that, she was a Lex writer, covered the US economy from Washington and the Icelandic banking collapse from Reykjavik. Sarah studied Social and Political Sciences at Cambridge University and joined the FT in 2007. RSS

Ferdinando Giugliano is the FT's global economy news editor, based in London. Ferdinando holds a doctorate in economics from Oxford University, where he was also a lecturer, and has worked as a consultant for the Bank of Italy, the Economist Intelligence Unit and Oxera. He joined the FT in 2011 as a leader writer. RSS

Emily Cadman is an economics reporter at the FT, based in London. Prior to this, she worked as a data journalist and was head of interactive news at the Financial Times. She joined the FT in 2010, after working as a web editor at a variety of news organisations.
RSS

Ralph Atkins, capital markets editor, has been writing for the Financial Times for more than 20 years following an economics degree from Cambridge. From 2004 to 2012, Ralph was Frankfurt bureau chief, watching the European Central Bank and eurozone economies. He has also worked in Bonn, Berlin, Jerusalem and Brussels. RSS

Ben McLannahan covers markets and economics for the FT from Tokyo, and before that he wrote Lex notes from London and Hong Kong. He studied English at Cambridge University and joined the FT in 2007, after stints at the Economist Group and Institutional Investor. RSS